There was a case going around concerning the all-comers policy at the University of Iowa. All-comers policies are policies that require organizations to open up their leadership to members of different races, sexes and religious preferences. They have generally been used to drive Christian groups off the campuses of colleges and universities (rarely are they enforced against non-Christian groups). As such, the policy was being used to pressure a Christian organization. However an injunction has been put on the university… Read more

I had the pleasure last week of attending a seminar on the “Threats to Academic Freedom and Free Speech” in Washington DC. It was a lively exchange between professors and lawyers from some key free speech institutions (ACLU, FIRE and ALEC). During the exchange I brought up a point I would like to discuss because it reminds us about the importance of free speech. My point begins like this. Until last year, when we talked about identity politics we would… Read more

An interesting thing happened after I posted last week about how anger helped to create the Trump presidency. Some of my non-leftist academic friends contacted me on my facebook page, and confirmed that they were angry. They informed me that they had a right to be angry as well. I cannot say they are wrong about that. Non-leftist academics have been treated like second class citizens in academia, and that treatment has generated a great deal of anger. Take for… Read more

Much of this is tied to the disrespect that many of Trump voters perceive. They are tired of being told that they do not know their own interest, or that they are bigots for not accepting the latest cultural trend. Read more

This has been quite a year in politics. To say that President Trump has been controversial is to say that water is wet. And he has earned every bit of that controversy. But even all of the drama seems to be minor in comparison to the recent Moore/Jones excitement in Alabama. Yeah it has been quite a year. In a few days most of us will celebrate Christmas. In fact as you read this, you may already be on your… Read more